Christopher's Ghosts
by Charles McCarry
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Book Summary Information
Author: Charles McCarryEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-05-10
ISBN: 1585679143
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Overlook Duckworth
Book Reviews of Christopher's Ghosts
Book Review: A Paean to Stoicism
Summary: 5 Stars
There are few characters in Western literature outside of Candide who suffer as much as Paul Christopher. His first love is killed by the Nazis, his mother is kidnapped by Reinhard Heydrich and disappears for fifty years, his father is murdered by the Communists and his wife betrays him. His own career is no better. He is wounded on Okinawa, friends are murdered, when he discovers the real assassins of JFK, his friend arranges for him to be captured by Red China where he spends ten years in solitary confinement. Throughout his ordeals, he never yields to self pity. He forges ahead with his principles intact. Mr. McCarry's Paul Christopher novels are a hymn to Kipling's Gods of the Copybook Headings.
The result is that when Christopher has the opportunity for a little payback, the result is immensely satisfying. Christopher's Ghosts is divided into two parts. In the first, we have the haunting tragedy of Christopher's first love. Mr. McCarry manages to evoke the tensions of Nazi Berlin while simultaneously recounting Christopher's tender teenaged romance with a lovely young German girl who has a Jewish grandparent. We also come to know a monstrous SS interrogator with an interest both in the young woman and in the Christopher family. The second part of the novel occurs about twenty years later when Christopher finds and hunts down the interrogator, now working for East Germany. The ending, abrupt and efficient, is perfect.
As with all of McCarry's novels, there is not an excess of violence, but the mood and the setting, which reminds me quite a bit of Alan Furst's writing, create a tension that keeps you turning the pages. Mr. McCarry is the master of the espionage novel, without the transparent gimmicks and stupid moral equivalence that you find in Le Carre.
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